poem

I Claim This Land for the Queen of Spain

The Village of Wolverine Lake

managed to live quietly

unobtrusively

for many years waiting

patiently for me

to live my life not

twenty-five miles east as

the crow flies

passing unaware

to within a stones’

throw

or a hairs breadth

from time to time,

houses, lake, dam acquiring

patinas,

folks going about their business

laying aside sedimentary

layers of small town

bonhomie

against the inevitable

day of my arrival,

last evening

as

it turns out,

a hapless Columbus

in search of a decent

bar only to discover

a new world, my Hispaniola.